I’ve read your reviews on both lenses but I got some questions. I do own the F2.4 50mm Summarit and i am very happy with it. It’s totally usable wide open and really sharp and smooth. Build quality is great, too. But you know the nagging doubts we photo people tend to have: Is the Summicron even better? Does it have more of the Leica look? I do also have the Summicron 35 ASPH and i like the classical look it gives a lot. Is the Summicron 50 usable wide open? The Summicron 35 is good wide open but not great. I usually start using it at F2.4. F2.4 on the Summarit is great. So if the Summicron 50 is the same as the 35 then i would never use it wide open anyway. So would it be worth switching?
Any thoughts on this? Feel free to not answer me if you have no time to answer this or you get such questions every day. I thought i’d give it a try anyway 🙂
Greetings from Germany,
P
I’m familiar with the nagging doubts, although I must say I’m changing less every year about my own kit. To me, the 50 Cron is still my number one lens. It just ticks all the boxes. It is light, small, focusses perfectly (no tab) and is a true allrounder. For me it is more than sharp enough wide open if you nail the focus. Wide open I love the way it renders. The higher micro contrast of the Cron translates into what I think of as the Leica look.
If I were to go somewhere with just one lens, it would be the 50 cron. Best lens ever.
Group shots are a nightmare for most photographers and I’m not an exception. While I’m quite comfortable with single person portraits, a group shot is completely different. The difference between these two has everything to do with being in control.
With a single person corporate headshot I use my own portable studio, consisting of two Broncolor Siros heads, a collapsible background, a couple of reflectors and that’s it. The most important factor in creating good headshots is time. My clients often try to convince me to ‘squeeze in’ a shoot in between meetings, but that doesn’t work. I need 20 minutes per person, otherwise I won’t take the job.
With a group shot, there’s usually not an option to set up a portable studio. You’ll need so much gear, it won’t be portable anymore. That means you’ll have to improvise with light and background. Which means you’ll often lose some control. The other tricky thing is to get everyone look nice and approachable at the same time. You can cheat a bit by shooting from a tripod and ‘swap’ faces between individual shots, but to be honest, I really don’t like that.
So here’s how I did it. I used available light, underexposed by roughly 3 stops. I corrected my main light with a flash shooting bare bulb (no modifier on it) against a white wall. As a fill light, I used a second flash shot through an umbrella. I didn’t need any gels for colour compensation. The temperature of daylight and flashlight was pretty much the same.
I directed my subjects to the seats and let them decide for themselves who would sit and stand and how they would like it. After that, I ‘corrected’ them a bit, tried to get my client sitting on the table a bit more upright and tried to make them feel comfortable. I took 15 shots and it was over in less than 15 minutes.
I used the Leica SL with CV 35/1.2 on f4 or f5.6. I had my setup completely ready and tested (with other people) before my subjects arrived.
Both the client and I were satisfied with the shot. I must say I’ve made group shots that are a lot worse. This turned out quite nicely because I took time to carefully plan the shot.
While the ‘true’ Leica photographer may already have frowned upon my praise of the Leica SL and the Leica CL, it gets worse from here for those people. Yes, I just acquired a (relatively) cheap zoom lens with autofocus from a non-Leica brand. The reason: I wanted a relatively cheap zoom lens with autofocus. Leica doesn’t make one for the SL and the 24-90 is lovely, but way too heavy for my taste. And now there’s a new kid in town: Panasonic.
I’ll keep it very short. The Panasonic Lumix S 24-105/f4 doesn’t look as sexy as Leica lenses do, but it could be worse. Also, ergonomically, it’s a joy. Autofocus seems to be pretty quick and the good thing is, just like with the native SL lenses, if you switch the lens to MF, it still focusses automatically when pressing the joystick. Perfect!
Dorus is (slowly) getting bigger. He’s 11 months old now and while he used to gain more than a kilo a week, he now starts to get some serious muscles. Even though he could chew off my hand in a second if he wanted to, he’s incredibly kind and sweet. He does tear up the newspaper and the sofa is getting smaller every day, but you can’t stay mad at him for more than a second. We’ll have lots of fun with this guy.
I still have two grandads, one of them being 92, the other 90. The grandad in this picture used to work in the Dutch air force. When I was a kid, I wanted to become a fighter pilot and my grandad used to tell me stories of the Gloster Meteor (the first allied jet fighter), the Starfighter and the NF5. He left the air force, just before the F16 was introduced.
I had an assignment close to my grandfathers house, so I stopped by and had a cup of coffee with him. I had my kit with me, so took out my Leica SL with the Nocti and took a few shots. He liked what he saw on the back of the screen. It was a fun visit. Too bad we have so little time to visit each other.
This summer I visited my parents in Sweden and decided to bring my gravel bike (a road bike with disc brakes and a slightly different geometry that allows for bigger tyres). After my first day I realized the riding over there was that much fun that I wanted to pitch a story for a cycling magazine. However, I ‘only’ had my CL with a couple of lenses with me. No, seriously, this is how APS-C cameras are still seen among photographers. Full frame or bigger seems to be the only option for pros and serious amateurs, while in reality, I shot dozens of weddings in my early days with a Canon 20D. Also APS-C, but ancient compared to the Leica CL.
So we waited for a sunny day, took our Prius (works perfectly for shooting while driving) with my brother behind the wheel and my wife in the trunk, armed with just the CL and a CV15/4.5 plus the Leica Summicron-M 50/2.0. We drove a couple of gravel roads and looked for interesting parts. Turns, hills and a variety in the background work in pictures like these. What also works is speed. If you want to show movement in your shots and you have the opportunity to shoot from a moving car, you can use the movement of the car to create movement blur. Because the cyclist (me) is moving at the same speed as the car, he will be sharp.
The trick is to select a shutter speed that is slow enough to get the blur, but not so slow that movement in other directions (camera shake) will become too noticeable. The higher the speed of car and bike, the faster your shutter speed can be. In this case, we didn’t ride really fast: roughly 30-35km/h. With 1/100th of a second we had just enough blur, without too much shake. The other two shots were shot in a more static way.
I pitched the story to Fiets (a dutch cycling magazine) and they accepted. Yesterday I received the printed magazine and it looks lovely.
Long story short: you can shoot professionally with a Leica CL. For some assignments there are better cameras, but in this case, it delivered.
Kamera Express has a temporary discount of 10% on all occasion cameras, lenses and other gear. I briefly looked at what they have in stock for Leica. The most interesting lens is an occasion Leica Summicron-TL 23/2.0 for 1079 euro. It seems that the front cap has been replaced with a non-original one, but that still makes it a good deal. I really love this lens, because it’s lightweight, sharp, fast and small.
Don’t wait too long.
By the way, I don’t get any commission from KE, or any other company.
The Billingham Hadley Large Pro is the biggest bag in the Hadley series and yes, it’s pretty big. The reason I asked for this bag at my contact at Degreef & Partner (the representative of Billingham in the Netherlands) is not because I wanted to carry my M-gear around. Unless you have a lot of gear (and I mean really a lot), this bag is too big for just an M kit. For me it’s the perfect bag when I have a workshop where I need to bring a 15″ laptop, a few cameras, a couple of lenses and lots of other things.
There aren’t too many Billingham bags that fit a 15″ MacBook Pro (mine is a couple of years old and a little bigger than the current MacBook). In fact, the Hadley Large Pro is the only Hadley that fits a 15″. On paper that is, because a few months ago I had a workshop student with a Hadley One who brought a 15″ MacBook Pro in it. A bit tight, but it fits.
The leather top handle allows for comfortable carrying.
When the bag arrived, it was just like I expected. Sturdy, perfectly made and good looking. If you already have one or two Billinghams, you get used to the quality. It’s probably much sturdier than you’ll ever need. Further inspection of the bag revealed two remarkable things: the first being the closure system. Unlike all other Hadley’s, the Large Pro uses true buckles instead of the quick lock system that I really love. The reason: the capacity of the Large Pro is too big to work with the quick lock system. It needs a more secure closing system.
It means you can’t stick a divider or flap anywhere you’d like…
The second thing that I noticed is that the interior part of the insert is not made of the soft material that you’ll find in other Hadley bags. It means you can’t stick a divider or flap anywhere you’d like. You’re restricted to the velcro that Billingham inserted. M users will find that it’s not so easy to put small lenses in if you want to separate the lenses to prevent them from scratching.
The interior is limited with regards to using dividers, unlike the other Hadley bags.
And that brings us to the purpose of the Hadley Large Pro: it’s not really designed with the M user in mind. It’s far better suited for SL, S and R shooters with big and heavy lenses. For those shooters, plus all DSLR users, it will excel. I do have the SL, but I don’t have any big lenses for it (I don’t need them). I’ve tried to fit the Canon 5Dmk3 with a 70-200/2.8 and that works perfectly.
Or when I go out for a weekend and need a laptop, some camera gear and clothes, a toothbrush and other gear, this is also a nice bag…
But like I said, I do have assignments and workshops where I just need to bring a lot of stuff, including camera stuff and a laptop. Or when I go out for a weekend and need a laptop, some camera gear and clothes, a toothbrush and other gear, this is also a nice bag. I even used it to bring my small soprano ukulele when I visited some friends. I’ve also brought it to a workshop with the Hadley Small stored in the Hadley Large Pro. I used the big Hadley Large Pro to carry my laptop and extra camera gear to show, but only brought my Hadley Small when we went out to shoot. Works perfectly.
A buckle system provides more security when loaded to the max, but takes a bit more time to open and close, compared to the quick-lock system.
My wife used the bag a couple of times for taking her Sony FS5 camera to a run and gun video assignment. With the grips, matte boxes and microphone removed, the entire FS5 body plus lens, fitted on a Vocas rig, fits in the bag, while maintaining a very small footprint. A lot of video camera bags are very wide and not very suitable to travel with on public transportation. The Hadley does a much better job at that.
Let’s go over the compartments real quick. There’s the big main compartment with removable insert. In addition, there’s a padded laptop compartment in the main compartment. On the back, there’s a zipped compartment for valuables or documents. On the front, there are two big compartments for lots of batteries, chargers, food, bottles, whatever you need. Plenty of room for everything.
Here it is packed with the photo equipment pictured below. It’s better suited for big lenses and cameras than for M cameras and lenses, but it’s nice if you want to take loads of gear to another place and work from there with a smaller bag on the streets.
My review bag is made of canvas which I really love. It will keep the contents of your bag dry as long as you don’t submerge your bag. The FibreNyte is just as waterproof, a bit lighter, but doesn’t ‘age’ as nice as the canvas. All critical parts are made of fine, thick leather that will outlast you. For a bag of this size, brass feet would have been nice, but the base of the bag is probably not wide enough to be ‘put on its feet’.
The most unusual contents of a camera bag I’ve ever shown to you…and you can fit much in the bag than I just did.
1: 2015 MacBook Pro. Fits very well.
2: A soprano ukulele. I don’t take this to weddings of course. But it fits in the bag (with the head stock out)
3: A nicely wrapped up Nocti.
4: A 24 Summilux in its case
5: Leica M240
6: A bottle of water. Steel is real.
7: The Leica SL
8: CV 15/4.5
9: Minolta 58/1.2
The bag is easy and comfortable to carry, but I must say that if you use this bag to the max, you’ll need a shoulder pad, like the SP20 or the SP50. Even then, it’s probably not the best idea to go on a 10k hike. A backpack will be better for that purpose.
The Billingham Hadley Large Pro isn’t a typical M-user bag. It’s a bag for SL, S and R shooters, or for M shooters that bring lots of gear and a 15″ laptop…
Conclusion
The Billingham Hadley Large Pro isn’t a typical M-user bag. It’s a bag for SL, S and R shooters, or for M shooters that bring lots of gear and a 15″ laptop. If you have one or two SL cameras, plus the 24-90, 90-280 and some other stuff, this is probably your bag. For me, it’s a minus that the interior isn’t as customizable as the smaller Hadley bags, because it makes the bag somewhat less versatile. However, for those with the DSLR-sized kit, or for those that bring lots of (non-M)gear, I can’t think of other bags that bring your stuff to your destination with the same amount of protection and style as the Billingham Hadley Large Pro.
The American Society of Cinematographers celebrates its 100th anniversary and Leica introduces a new version of the Leica M10-P, aimed at cinematographers. The Leica M10-P ASC 100 Edition is equipped with the Visoflex and with the M-PL lens mount adapter. Also, there’s a gold (ish) Summicron 35/2.0 ASPH with a nice metal lens cap. However, the M10, or M10-P aren’t capable of shooting video…
There are a few additions under the hood: the ASC 100 edition has two video ‘looks’: ASC Cine classic and ASC Contemporary, but that won’t turn the camera into a ‘professional tool for videographers’. Having said that, there are a lot of cameras that do shoot video and even quite impressively. There’s a big ‘however’, when using stills cameras for video.
Yes, there has been a huge increase in videographers using still cameras for video work and it’s perfectly possible to create high quality movies with cameras like the Sony A7S, or the Leica SL. But there are a few downsides as well. If you want a rig (a video camera with all other things like microphones, matte boxes, follow focus) that works and is ergonomically perfect, you end up buying a lot of expensive gear to make a stills camera into something it was not designed to do.
We’ve been there. We have tried to make a Sony A7S work as a ‘run and gun’ documentary camera, but in the end we bought the Sony FS5 video camera, simply because it works much, much better.
Three simple examples why we prefer a dedicated video camera for most of our video work:
We need a follow focus that works: while shooting, you need to be able to adjust focus, sometimes during a shot. You should be able to do this, without having to touch your lens. We sometimes use Leica M lenses for video, but not if they have a tabbed focus ring. On these tabs, you can’t attach a follow focus ring.
For high quality audio the standard is usually XLR. A lot of stills cameras only have a jack input. There are high quality wireless microphone sets that use a jack input, but these slide onto your hotshoe, where in this case, your Visoflex will be…
ND filters are the bomb. With a stills camera, you can choose your shutter speed according to the available light. With video, you’re stuck with 1/50th of a second. So if you’re shooting outside on a sunny day at 400 ISO (a lot of video profiles don’t go lower than 400 or 800 ISO) you have to have a ND filter in front of your lens, unless you want to shoot at f16 or smaller all time. Our FS5 has built in ND filters, with a dedicated button, that can be switched on and off in less than a second. We can’t work without these.
Here’s a shot of Anita working with her Sony FS5. She’s operating the follow focus, while her other hand controls some key functions through an extendable grip. Photo: Bart van Vliet
I don’t exclusively shoot weddings. No thanks, I’ve been there and it’s too much stress. In fact, a part of my work involves visiting industrial companies and write about what they do. The text is usually accompanied by my pictures. As a former neuroscientist I have a ‘natural tendency’ to figure out how things work and a modern factory has a lot in common with a vertebrate brain. But I won’t bore you with that.
Recently I visited a bakery. Or better: a factory where bread is produced. If you make your own bread, like I do with a small, but very efficient machine, it may look like you’ve just entered a setting for a Star Wars production. Bread from a factory can’t be good, right? Well, in fact, most of the process operators that work in this factory used to work in smaller bakeries and the fundamental process of baking bread hasn’t changed in the much larger factories. It’s all just very, very big.
I took my Leica SL and a couple of lenses to the factory, but I only used my 24 Summilux. It turned out to be a perfect lens for shooting in this setting. With the wide angle I could really show the dimensions of the process and with its maximum 1.4 aperture I didn’t have to worry about the amount of light.
I’ll never win any awards with these shots, but that’s not the purpose of them either. Sometimes you’ll just have to show the things as they are, nothing more, nothing less.
Thousands of loaf pans are used in the factoryBut the process starts at one of the three lines where they mix the dough.Here’s a batch of buns that just came out of the mega ovens. You can actually see me and the process operator in the reflectionBread is cooled down to be able to process it quicker to the packing departmentAnd here’s what that looks like slightly closer upAnd here’s the final step: quality check and packing.
